


Table for One

by oxfordlunch



Series: Quickest Way to a Man's Heart [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Bye Myra, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, M/M, The One Where Eddie is a Chef, but not because I don't love them, none of the other losers made it in, some past bullying is referenced, this is mostly just fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 18:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21040595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordlunch/pseuds/oxfordlunch
Summary: "Are you... allowed to do that?"The guy's forehead turns into a mess of wrinkles as he raises his eyebrows and gives a little bark of a laugh.  Richie recognizes him just as the guy says "Dude, it's my fucking restaurant."





	Table for One

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a line cook. Don't they always tell you to write what you know?

It might be the best thing Richie Tozier has ever eaten.

He really is more of a cheeseburger and fries guy, hold the fucking truffle oil, but he's never been shy about admitting when he's wrong and golly fucking heck, was he wrong.

"Holy shit," he groans around a mouthful of stuffed cabbage.

Steve rolls his eyes at him across the table, cutting into one of his pierogi with his knife and fork. "Rich, honestly. When have I ever gotten you a table at a shitty restaurant?"

Richie ignores him, spooning up another mouthful of delicious, delicious broth. It tastes like everything good in life. It hits all the right buttons, like that first sip of liquid gold MSG-laden broth that the wontons come floating in with your late-night solo Chinese, like tomato soup saturating a Wonder Bread grilled cheese that your mother made you in a rare fit of sober mom-liness when you came home with a bloody nose and _flamer, faggot, creep_ ringing in your ears, like the best cup of coffee ever ever ever flooding into your hungover mouth on a Sunday morning.

Some bastard made _this_ out of a fucking tomato, and it doesn't seem fair.

"That has vegetables in it, you know," Steve says as Richie reaches for his water, wanting to rinse his mouth in the hopes that it makes the next bite taste as good as the first had. Like wishing you could hear your favorite song for the first time all over again.

"I eat vegetables, Steven. I'm a forty-year-old man. Says so right on my driver's license."

"Man-child."

"Whatever, _man_."

"Precious," Steve says, bone dry. "We still need to talk business here, Rich; SNL was serious about this and you need to be, too--"

Richie waves his spoon at him and shakes his head, a slightly more mature take on jamming his fingers in his ears and la la la-ing. "Stop talking, I'm eating my gol-whatever the fuck-ski and you're ruining it."

"Golabki," says an irritated-sounding voice to his right.

"Gesundheit," Richie says automatically, making himself laugh, and turns his head to see a compact man in a neat white coat with short sleeves and a few tattoos on his arms to make up the difference. He's more or less looming over the table, but Richie thinks if they were standing up, the other guy would definitely be the loom-ee.

CHEF EDDIE KASPBRAK, according to his coat, pastes a pleasant smile on his face with what looks like a tremendous amount of effort. "Hey, good evening guys," he says. Apparently they're pretending CHEF EDDIE didn't just correct him. "I'm just checking in, seeing how you're enjoying everything."

"Everything's delicious, thank you," Steve says, clearly wanting to get back to discussing Richie's Career Troubles, and Richie senses a perfect opportunity to get out of doing that for a little longer.

"Dude, no, this is fucking _amazing_,'" Richie says, pointing at his plate. "It's stupid delicious. Did you make this?"

CHEF EDDIE's forehead creases and he gives Richie a side-eyed look that's reminiscent of a rabbit that's frozen on somebody's lawn as you're walking past it. No real fear, but a healthy amount of cautious "who the fuck are you".

"Well, yes. That is my job. As the chef." The 'dumbass' tacked on to the end is implied but unspoken.

"Honestly, I love this. I'm usually full of shit but I'm not even being full of shit right now; I'm being one-hundred-percent fucking real with you. This is amazing. It tastes like... fuck me, I don't know. It tastes like fucking..."

"Can you not right now, Rich?" Steve groans.

"It tastes like you're sick, right? And you're all alone because you're a fucknut who can't keep a girlfriend and mommy's long gone and you can't cook but you've got one of those Spicy Chicken Cup Noodles and you boil it up and try not to stab the fork through the cup while you're picking out the nasty little freeze-dried carrot flakes but that fucking broth is the best thing you've ever had in you're entire fucking _life_," Richie realizes he's really letting himself go here, but he can't shut up, not now that he's on a roll. "Like that's it, cheap soup just solved your life for four minutes, right? That's, um." He clears his throat, tries for an endearing smile, and shrugs. "It's fucking good, man."

CHEF EDDIE still looks nervy and twitchy and doe-eyed, but he smiles, just a little, and shrugs too. "Comforting, right?"

"Yeah, man." Richie smiles back.

And a few minutes later, Richie's all but forgotten about CHEF EDDIE, whose departure was followed by some (rude) snapping in Richie's face courtesy of his manager and the words "Fucking SNL, Rich, I swear to God, I will drop your act...," but their server brings them hot glasses of Krupnik and a beautifully plated dessert consisting of some kind of sour cream cheesecake on the house, and he reflects (not something he does often, and he only swings it for maybe like five seconds) on how much it pays to be nice to people occasionally.

  
\---

  
The next time he's in that restaurant he's sitting at the bar and his stomach wants nothing to do with food.

He had the best intentions, coming in here. It's been a shitty fucking day, and a shitty fucking night, because he's sick as a dog and a little feverish, and all he could think about was that maybe he could order up some more comfort off the menu and feel a little better.

Instead, he's slumped over the warm, clean bar, sipping on Four Roses like it's orange Triaminic in the little plastic shooter that comes with the medicine bottle.

The bartender is handsome and stupid, clearly the Wednesday night fill-in. Richie eyes him up all the same. It's easy to check out bartenders without being too obvious. Who the fuck else are you supposed to look at when you're drinking by yourself?

Pathetically, he wishes the bartender would talk to him. A sympathetic "Rough night?" A curious "You from around here?" A fanboying "Holy shit, are you Richie Tozier?"

When Richie tended bar, eons ago, to fill up the nights that he couldn't find an open mic, he always talked to people.

If he knows one thing, it's that people sitting at bars are fucking lonely.

He goes back to staring uncomprehendingly at the basketball game on the TV for the next quarter of an hour.

Someone plunks himself down on the stool to Richie's right with a whole lot of sighing and grumbling, snapping Richie's attention away from a Gatorade commercial featuring Hot Wet Athletes (TM). The someone next to him has wet hair and damp skin and smells like he just showered, piney men's body wash and salt-water-y cologne, a pink flush showing on his clean-shaven face. Richie takes a deep breath and all the blood drains right the fuck out of his head.

A fortifying sip of bourbon drains his glass, and he stares at the bottom of it miserably.

Like he didn't already feel sick enough.

The bartender comes over and starts pouring the guy a Tito's and OJ that Richie hadn't heard him actually order. Regular?

"Thanks, Lee," the guy says.

Richie looks at his empty glass again and tries to say "Hey, can I get a..." but Bartender Lee has already mosied back down the bar to take care of a pair of young women who have been slamming back cosmos for the last hour. "Well, fuck."

"What're you drinking?" Irish Spring asks from somewhere near Richie's right elbow. Richie glances at him, notices that he looks familiar. Doe eyes. Scrappy.

"Uh, Four Roses. Why, you buying?" Richie tries for a smirk, but he honestly feels like such shit he's not sure if he's even up for teasing anyone. His eyes widen as he watches the guy hop down off his stool and duck under the counter flap, grab the bottle down off the shelf (with only a little stretching and standing on tiptoe), and take Richie's glass from him to refill it.

"Are you... allowed to do that?"

The guy's forehead turns into a mess of wrinkles as he raises his eyebrows and gives a little bark of a laugh. Richie recognizes him just as the guy says "Dude, it's my fucking restaurant."

"Oh, shit," Richie laughs, "I didn't recognize... without the fancy coat and everything, you know?"

The guy laughs too, shaking his head and plunking Richie's glass down on a bar napkin, nudging it closer to him. "Time to get your prescription renewed, Four-Eyes." He's got both hands braced on the bar, leaning on it confidently like he owns the place.

Because he does, Richie thinks, still smiling. He puts on a mock-appalled face. "I am a paying customer, sir."

The guy snorts. "You're a fucking comedian; I'm gonna hope you've been heckled worse than that before."

"Oh god, my cover's been blown."

"You're on Netflix, man, you have no cover."

"A boy can dream," Richie says wistfully. He takes a sip of his drink, feeling warmer and less sickly-clammy by the second. "So," he begins again after a comfortable silence. "A fan, huh? Can I get you an autograph?"

He can't even keep up the poker face; as soon as the guy coughs into his drink, flips him off, and snorts "Fuuuck you," Richie is laughing again. He snags a pen from a paid check a few stools down and takes a fresh bar napkin out of a caddy. _To_ he writes, then looks up at the guy, squinting, furrowing his brow, feigning intense concentration. "Aaaandy?" he tries.

"Oh my god. It's Eddie, fucknuts."

That's right. CHEF EDDIE, Richie remembers. Eddie K.

"To... _Eddie_..." he narrates as he writes. "Fucknuts..."

"Give me that drink back," Eddie says. "Privileges, revoked."

"Richie Tozier," Richie says, signing his name. A second later, he adds a corny little heart, confident he's playing this all off like a joke anyway. Why not live a little?

"Your handwriting sucks, dude."

"Not as well as your mom does."

And so it goes on.

And if Richie maybe drinks a little too much, too quickly, well. Cute boy. It was bound to happen. In any case, Eddie eventually begs off saying he's got a ton of orders to call in tonight, but he hopes Richie has fun in New York, and Richie calls himself an Uber. He looks at the pen lying on the bar and sort of wishes he hadn't scribbled his phone number on that napkin after his name.

It was pretty pathetic, is all. But that's more or less Richie's brand. Get drunk, embarrass self, wash-rinse-repeat.

_Wheel in the sky keeps on tur-nin'..._

  
\---

  
It's 2019, so of course Richie Googles him.

He would _love_ to say that he wasn't slumpy-drunk on the sofa in his boxers when he did it, taking a break from PornHub, but lying is bad, mmk? And you can only watch so much 'amateur' 'twink' 'muscle twink' 'muscle twink blow job POV' et fucking cetera.

He can't remember how to spell CHEF EDDIE's aggressively Polish last name, so he types 'eddie k chef nyc' into the  
search box and pulls the trigger.

And there he is.

The web site for his restaurant is among the first results, as are a few news articles about James Beard nominations and his contributions to what people are calling 'New Polish Cuisine.' Richie skips all that and clicks over to the 'images' tab. He exhales like he's taken a punch to the gut.

The guy looks good in a chef's coat. Really good. Every photo has him neatly pressed and dressed for work, short sleeves showing off a few tattoos that are hard to discern from a distance. He doesn't smile in any of them. He's got that wide-eyed, rabbity thing going on, like he's ready to throw hands with the photographer if necessary.

"Fuck me," Richie mumbles and slams the laptop shut.

As far as he's concerned, that's settled it. He won't be going back to New York. Ever.

It's the only way.

  
\----

  
"Rich, stop being a fucking drama queen. Get in a cab, go eat your dinner, go to bed. Sleep off the jet lag."

"I thought we were friends, Steve. I'm fucking wounded. I can't believe this shit."

"Oh my god, _poor you_, you've got a reservation for a nice table for one at one of the best restaurants in the neighborhood and a suite at the fucking SoHo Grand."

"..."

"Bye, Rich. Have fun. See you tomorrow night."

"Bye, _Benedict Arnold._"

  
\----

  
Richie lacks self-preservation instinct, apparently, so he shows up for his eight pm rez with his least-tacky shirt and sport coat on and Kenny Loggins stuck in his head.

"Hi, welcome to Myra," the hostess says, warm and false.

"Hi-i," Richie says back, pasting a smile on his face. "Reservation for Tozier?"

"Just one tonight?"

"Yep, just me," Richie says through his teeth, still smiling.

His table is, all things considered, considerately located, hidden away in a quiet corner that makes it easy for him to people watch and less-than-easy for other guests to stare at the sad man eating dinner alone. He orders a bourbon and reads the menus over, unsure what half of the items are but pretty sure he'll like whatever he gets. He tells himself CHEF EDDIE probably has better things to do than to personally prepare Richie's dinner and that maybe it's even CHEF EDDIE's night off and maybe CHEF EDDIE is out with his boyfriend, scratch that, girlfriend (wife? Was there a ring?), because who even fucking knows if he's gay, so, in conclusion, Richie should calm the fuck down and enjoy his meal.

Five minutes later, his server brings him a gorgeous, colorful little salad with beets and some sort of puree and a whole bunch of stuff he can't identify. "Chef Kaspbrak says hello and that he hopes you're hungry, Mr. Tozier."

"Oh my god," Richie mumbles, staring at the salad.

She takes his menus away without asking him what he wants and he thinks he might actually just die of mortification right here and now.

He takes a swig of his drink, chokes it down, and picks up his fork. You want to dance, CHEF EDDIE? Let's fucking dance.

  
\----

  
He knocks out the beet salad.

The server brings a mushroom tart next, buttery and golden and with a light little nest of greens sitting on top like the grass in an Easter basket. Delicious. Gone.

The next plate is half a smoked ham hock and white beans in a sauce that reminds him of barbecue. He makes it through that, really fucking likes it, and orders another drink.

"Tell the chef it was delicious," he says, a challenge in his tone, as his plate is whisked away. His server winks at him.

She comes back a few minutes later with a plated series of pierogi, and Richie blanches a little but picks up his fork, still game. "I see you, Kaspbrak."

  
\----

  
Richie now sees there was no way for him to win this game. It's fucking rigged. Eddie has all the potatoes and flour in the universe at his disposal, and Richie's stomach is only so big, especially now that he's past his prime eating years during which killing a large pizza by himself wasn't unheard of.

When his server comes to take back his last clean plate, he slaps his hand flat on the table a few times. "No mas, senorita. I'm tapping out, tell that little weasel in the kitchen he wins. Jesus." He leans back into his chair and tries to give his stomach a little more room to breathe.

"Chef will be out with your dessert in a minute, Mr. Tozier," she says, a shit-eating grin playing on her face.

  
\----

  
"What's up, Four-Eyes?"

Richie makes a "guh" sound and rolls his head over onto his other shoulder to see CHEF EDDIE stopping in front of his table, dressed in his white coat and a smirk. "Hey, cutie. Here to finish me off?" He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

Eddie rolls his eyes and slides into the empty seat across from him, setting down the two shot glasses he's carrying.

"I was promised dessert."

"I'm being merciful, don't get used to it."

"Kind master has brought Dobby a shot," Richie croons. "Ow!"

Eddie picks up his shot glass and raises it, all innocence and pretending he didn't just kick Richie dead in the shin. His eyes seem... fond? Richie doesn't want to assume fondness. That's too easy. Fondness doesn't leave room for the let down and heartbreak this is all sure to lead to.

For argument's sake, though. What if it is fond?

"So are we like, friends, or whatever, now?" Richie asks, casually, picking up his shot.

Eddie smiles and raises his glass higher, nods at Richie, and tips it back. Richie mirrors him and is very pleasantly surprised.

"Was that some like crazy expensive vodka or something?"

Eddie is just fucking looking at him with those bush-baby eyes, fiddling with his empty shot glass. "Wanna see the kitchen?" he says, after a little while.

"Um, _yeah_." Standing up so quickly was not a good call, and his stomach lurches a little with how full he is, but he waits for Eddie to stand up and follows him through the dining room. "Shit, I forgot my non-slip shoes," he comments, and Eddie snorts as he pushes open the door to the kitchen and holds it for him.

Once they're inside, Eddie puts a hand on his back and shoves him around a little, weaving him in and out of people who are still working and waving hot pans and knives around. "Right behind!" he barks. He brings him over to a quiet corner that seems a little less hazardous. The dish machine door slams nearby, pans and plates clatter endlessly, and there is a stream of constant shouting that drowns out even Richie's noisiest thoughts.

"So this is where the magic happens, huh?" Richie says.

"Yeah, I-- hang on. Marco! Let me see that fucking plate, stop right _fucking_ there." Eddie is down at the other end of the line before Richie can blink, shoving in next to one of the cooks and inspecting the plate he's working on. "The salad's wilted, jackass! Is this your first day? I don't think it's your first fucking day."

"Sorry, chef!"

"New garnish, let's go!"

"Heard, chef, new garnish!"

Something else happens that takes Eddie's attention, and then another thing, and another, and Richie watches more- or-less spellbound as he moves up and down the line like an angry little animal, jabbering in Spanglish and putting out literal fires all over the place.

'muscle twink competent' Richie thinks frantically, losing his cool just a little bit.

There's also the little detail that Eddie is actually fucking nice to him, seems to genuinely not hate his company, and makes him laugh until he might piss himself, but thinking about all of that is, like, extremely anxiety-inducing, so he blanks it out.

He still never called Richie's number.

  
\----

"I am so fucking sorry, I got distracted, you probably have like seventeen other places to be or a comedy club to make an appearance at or a fucking flight to catch or something and I just left you standing in the corner like a jackass, you can go if you want, your tab's on me, obviously, I'm really glad you came in again, and I'll obviously be happy to make you dinner again if you wanna come back ever, you're welcome whenever, just--"

"Woah, easy, killer."

"--if you make a reservation you're on like The List now so like they'll know who you are and I'll know you're coming, so just--"

"Hey, Earth to Eddie??"

Richie finally manages to cut him off by waving a hand in front of his face. Eddie takes a deep breath through his nose and huffs it out again, chest heaving. He has sweat beading up near his hairline and his face is red from standing over the burners. Richie smiles and shakes his head.

"Man, the pictures really don't get any of this," he says, gesturing up and down at him.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean, what pictures?"

Richie shifts a little, aware all of a sudden that he doesn't have a non-creepy answer for that.

"Nothing, man, nevermind." Richie clears his throat and shoves his hands in his pockets. "That was cool, though. Like, watching you work. I enjoyed myself, so don't like... worry about it. You're a total boss. You're a badass."

Eddie stands there panting for a second, then pats one of his pockets like he's checking for his phone or a pack of smokes. What he ends up pulling out is a blue inhaler, and he turns away from Richie to take a few puffs on it.

Great, Richie thinks. I gave the guy a fucking asthma attack, nice going.

"All right, listen. Here's the thing," Eddie says, turning back to him. He squints over Richie's shoulder, seems to notice all of his employees still milling around cleaning up and wrapping pans with Saran wrap, and grabs Richie's sleeve, dragging him out a back door and into a brightly lit little alleyway full of broken down boxes and upturned milk crates.

The door slams heavily behind them and cuts off the chaotic noise of the kitchen, leaving them in the relative quiet of Manhattan by night.

"Trying to get me alone, chef?" Richie jokes, but it's pretty half-hearted.

"I never called you," Eddie cuts in. His eyes are even wider than usual, his face tense and sour, and he's fumbling with his inhaler in one hand.

Richie blinks.

"The napkin, Rich. The stupid fucking autograph."

Ouch. "Well, yeah, I wanted your mom to give me a call."

"Really? You're really doing that right now? I'm trying to fucking--"

"Hey, shut up, ok? I get it." Richie hears himself snap, unable to hold it back. "You're not gay for me, big deal. Just, please try not to ruin my career before I get a chance to ruin it myself, ok? Pretty please? Fantastic."

He's not sure what the look on Eddie's face means right now, but when Eddie takes a step towards him and makes a grab for his shirt, Richie shoves back and ducks away. "Don't fucking hit me" tumbles out of his mouth like a reflex, like a hammer on his knee.

His shoulders are shaking, and his hands, and he sniffs and catches his breath and watches Eddie warily for a long, quiet moment.

"Richie," Eddie says, and he sounds a little faint. "I'm not gonna hit you. Jesus."

Eddie puffs on his inhaler again, eyes wide.

Richie clears his throat and tries to relax. "Ok. Cool. That's cool. Sorry..."

He doesn't know what else to say.

"I'm gay," Eddie says, very slowly and very carefully.

"Oh."

"And I really like you."

Richie is kind of having a hard time breathing. He's a little jealous of Eddie's inhaler.

"I never called you because I'm a fucking coward, Rich, and I'm a hypochondriac, which you didn't know about me, I have like OCD about germs and getting sick, and I'm like a control freak, ok? That's why I'm married to my fucking restaurant. You think I date people? Or, or go out? I work, that's all I do. All I do is cook. And clean. Nobody ever knows that about being a chef, but like the best chefs love to clean even more than they like to cook, because you can always clean a restaurant, restaurants are fucking disgusting, so it's like having a fucking dealer giving me my favorite drug for free, all the time. So. There. Enjoy. I'm a fucking basketcase. That's why I didn't call."

They stand there and look at each other, wide-eyed, for a minute. Richie hears the faint sounds of the kitchen closing down behind the door and the traffic noise from the street, but mostly he hears Eddie's haphazard breathing.

Laughter starts to bubble up in his chest. He can't help it.

"Stop fucking laughing, asshole," Eddie says, and then starts laughing.

"You couldn't sack up and call me so you decided to fucking feed me to death instead, you little psycho!"

"Shut the fuck up, you loved it."

"Holy shit, the ham hock, Eds. I really did die a little, it was _fucking_ delicious--"

"Come here."

Richie's laughter peters out at the look on Eddie's face. He walks over to him, suddenly feeling very nervous and somewhat sweaty. "What's up?"

Eddie steps up and kisses him.

He's confident, and warm, and he grabs Richie by the hips and presses their fronts together, and Richie hears himself whine a little as he presses back into Eddie, nudging his face in as close as he can manage, completely overwhelmed by the hot, scratchy skin of Eddie's cheek, the smell of his skin, just a little bit like cooking oil and Dawn and the same cologne that Richie remembers from that night sitting at the bar.

He forgot, he realizes, what it feels like to kiss someone he's really into. Or maybe he never actually found out, and this is the first time. It's been so fucking long, anyway.

Eddie breaks off, nudges their noses together, and smiles when Richie's knees go out a little and Eddie's hands at his hips help hold him steady. "Richie..." he murmurs.

"I'm not a blushing virgin, I swear," Richie mumbles back.

Eddie laughs and steps even closer, ducking his head down and burying his face into Richie's shoulder. Richie hugs him close.

He's not sure how long he stands there holding him, but eventually Eddie says, still muffled into his shoulder, "This is gonna sound fucking terrible, but are you staying nearby?"

"My word, Edward. So _forward_."

Eddie groans and struggles out of his arms. His coat is adorably rumpled and his hair is mussed up.

Richie takes pity. "I'm down the street, buddy." At the goddamn SoHo Grand. Thanks, Steve.

"Oh, gross, don't call me that. Look, I just gotta get my bag and tell my sous to take care of the order tonight. You, uh. You wanna come back inside for a minute?"

"Sure thing, Eduardo." Richie would follow Eddie to Poughkeepsie or the moon, if that's where he wanted to go tonight, but he keeps that to himself. "Actually, I'm kinda hungry..."

Eddie snorts and grabs his hand, leading him back into the kitchen.


End file.
